Working on Werq

Sometime in the coming months, webisodes of WerqSF will be ready to watch on agorafauxbia.com. Right now I’m working on episode one “A Fabulous History Lesson”. This episode is a brief look at the history of San Francisco’s Faux Queen Pageant told by current producer Tria Connell (aka Bea Dazzler) and original co-producer Ruby Toosday.

Tria Conell aka Bea Dazzler during our interview

Bea and Ruby were kind enough to meet with me during my visit to San Francisco last year and share their knowledge and experiences of producing a pageant designed specifically for female identified women who perform as drag queens. Both Bea and Ruby describe faux queens as “drag queens trapped in real women’s bodies” and explain that the concept of this double drag, or as Ruby says “some sort of double genderfuck”, as the inspiration for the first contest in 1995. Bea Dazzler gives account of how Ruby begun to notice many of her female identified performer friends, who often displayed themselves similar to drag queens, were finding that they encountered discrimination and rejection when performing alongside their male identified counterparts. Along with fellow drag queen Diet Popsititute, Ruby pitched the idea of a club night devoted to women who wanted to perform as drag queens. At first, San Francisco’s Faux Queen Pageant had an uncomfortably long title, something like “The Fabulous She-Male Impersonators”, and Ruby is credited in San Francisco circles as being the first to coin the term Faux Queen.

After several years of popularity, interest in The Faux Queen Pageant declined and the contest was cancelled, although many title holders continued to actively perform drag in the city. In 2012, former Miss Faux Queen “Bea Dazzler” (aka Tria Connell) decided it was time to bring the pageant back to San Francisco.

Under Bea Dazzler’s direction the pageant made a grand re-entrance to San Francisco’s drag scene and encouraged a new generation of women performing as drag queens to take the stage. The return of the Faux Queen Pageant in 2012 was an impressive success, with 10 Faux Queens competing and a veritable A-list of drag celebrity judges. Bea produced a second pageant in 2013, at which I was lucky enough to be a contestant. Once again, interest in this double genderfuck drag is growing and a third Faux Queen Pageant is planned for this year. Not surprisingly, I’ve begged Bea to let me back for a second try, and she has graciously allowed me to clomp around on her stage again this year.

Are you interested to know more about this element of San Francisco’s history with Faux Queens? Check out episode one of WerqSF when it is uploaded to agorafauxbia.com.

The Famous BuBu who everyone loves

AFxoxoxox

PS.. Thank you to The Famous BuBu who was so kind to sit quietly (mostly) during my interview with Tria. Good Bird!